I actually went to this one, so I’ll just note what I saw. For his second start in a row, Alex Wood threw a ton of pitches in the early going as he struggled to command his fastball, and gave up a fair amount of hard contact, including a two-run homer to Michael Cuddyer. He eventually figured it out and looked much better later in the game, but with this offense, two-run homers by the opposition are awfully hard to overcome, and the Braves pitching staff put the offense behind the 8-ball all game.

Bartolo Colon mystified eight out of the nine Braves hitters for much of the afternoon, but Andrelton just slaughtered him. Through six innings, Simmons’ two-run triple and booming double were two of the only four hits off Colon; the Braves went down in order between the Simmons triple in the second and double in the fifth.

But for all of that, the margin of the game basically came down to two things: in the fourth inning, Wood threw a pitch that Colon was able to flip into right field for an RBI single, and in the 8th, Juan Jaime walked the first two men he faced, one of whom eventually came around to score on a sacrifice fly. Two-run homers happen, but leadoff walks and RBI singles by this guy simply shouldn’t:

This was a winnable game that the Braves lost. At least we’re still in first place.

154 comments on “Mets 4, IWOTB 3”

Stu Says:
It really is amazing that Mark Bowman hasn’t improved as a writer even a little bit in his long tenure with the Braves. So difficult to read.

Yes. Unfortunate that his long tenure hasn’t provided him the opportunity to gain the skills to have the chance to display improvement in showcasing his talent in the field of making words go together. Verb verb equivocation no comma verb verb.

Bartolo should get a lifetime contract from the National League teams. There’s just too much grace in that swing not to let it be a living tribute to itself in perpetuity. Sabean, Wilpon, Liberty, Margie’s heirs, Magic, etc…make it happen!

MLB.TV has had trouble with its broadcast feeds all spring. From what I can tell, these problems seem to occur most often with its featured games or Free Games. I finally got my Roku stick to work with MLB.TV like it did last year (no buffering or long load times), but I have a feeling I’m not out of the woods. MLB.TV is aware of the problem; they just haven’t sorted it out yet.

This is the kind of story that the stockpiling of draft picks by the Braves makes relevant. A broken hamate bone is a tough thing for a power hitter, but usually in a year to two years, they overcome it. Meanwhile, the draft decision has to be made. The other is an outfielder with an Achilles tear, which shouldn’t have much impact on draft status, but the concept is real.

If Jaime cannot be trusted in a clean slate inning, he doesn’t belong on the team. He’s not a sufficient mop-up man due to his inability to throw strikes (Fredi would just end up having to bring in someone to mop up the mop-up man’s work), and he’s not a sufficient ROOGY due to his inability to throw strikes, and he’s not a sufficient 6th-7th inning guy due to his inability to throw strikes. The one thing he’s sufficient at doing is handicapping a bullpen.

Braves, do yourself a favor, stop looking at that 100MPH fastball and DFA the Jaime.

It seems that Bowman’s problem is that he tries to hard. He’s too wordy–uses too many complicated clauses and qualifiers. Most sports articles can be written with simple language.

Re, Jaime: I think we agree that he’s worthless, but I wish Fredi wouldn’t pretend he didn’t have other options. He could’ve started the inning just as easily with McKirahan or tried to get more than 1/3 an inning out of Cody Martin. When you carry 7 relievers, you shouldn’t be in a bind because a couple of them pitched 2 days in a row. Fredi put himself in a bind with poor decision making and then caterwauled that his hands were tied.

One can only hope that Peanut figures out how to silence his own critics.

The real shame is that, compared to DOB, he seems like a pretty likable fellow. So, I’m stuck refusing to support one of them but unable to make it through more than a couple of sentences of the other.

We’re throwing the season on purpose and you guys want to cut Jaime after one inning? Really!? He needs to get tons of appearances this season. That’s what this season is for. Find out who can help going forward and who can’t. One bad outing doesn’t mean squat. Give him at least half a year and let McDowell work his magic.

I have no problem keeping Jaime on the roster. But if Fredi is going to use him, he should at least use him intelligently. Men on 2nd and 3rd with one out in a tie game in the 8th inning is the one situation where a sane manager would hope for a strikeout. Rubin Tejada had a 20% K rate last season. Jaime struck out 12.9 batters per nine in the minors, and 14.4 over the past two seasons at AA and AAA. The guy either walks people or strikes them out. Just let him throw gas and if he walks him he walks him.

@20, We’re not throwing the season. We’re trying to win as many games as possible. The 7th best pitcher in your bullpen doesn’t need open the 8th inning of a tie game. We will be behind a lot this year…Jaime can get tons of appearances when the game isn’t on the line.

Fine, send him packing. Also let’s cut Jace Peterson because after 6 games his bat is not playing well at this level. Alex Wood also looks a bit shaky at times. Let’s put him on notice.

You guys are not going to be able to handle this season if you are gonna treat it like we’re playing for the postseason. Almost every projection service out there, and Vegas, has us with a win total in the low 70s. Could they be wrong? Sure, outliers happen all the time. Will they be wrong? Probably not.

This is the time you want to throw the marginal prospects into the fire and see what they are all about. We’re not talking about tweaking our playoff roster in April. We’re talking about seeing if we can get anything from a guy that throws 100mph. Patience.

We’re not throwing the season. We’re trying to win as many games as possible. The 7th best pitcher in your bullpen doesn’t need open the 8th inning of a tie game. We will be behind a lot this year…Jaime can get tons of appearances when the game isn’t on the line.

Don’t let reality get in the way of a good whine, there buddy. It’s the sixth game of the season. The starters haven’t gone deep in any of the first five. The pen has been deployed by the sixth in four of them. The top guys all have 3 or more appearances already. Fredi clearly went into Saturday’s game with the plan to rest his #1 closer, Jason Grilli. Thus Jim Johnson closed that game. The Sunday plan was obviously to rest Johnson and use Grilli to close the 9th. The problem was that the bridge to get to the 9th was pretty well taxed for the first week of the season. Both Avilan and Cunniff have pitched four games already, including three in a row (with a single travel day back up from Florida in between.) Neither was available for yesterday’s game. (You may have used them, but a manager with a bit of sense will not rag out his top bullpen arms in game 6 of the season just because you would.)

Fredi went to the RH option at the back end of his pen, with clean bases. Jaime failed. McKirahan looked pretty good though, and almost certainly moved up the lists ahead of Jaime going forward, though it may depend on handedness. But again, any manager worth his salt who has two questionable options (Jaime, who has serious control issues but is out of options, and McKirahan, who was a Rule 5 pick up at the very tail end of camp, both of whom probably should be in AAA by rights) and one inning to get to his reliable closer (Grilli) goes with the hard throwing, potentially wild guy to start the inning, and brings in the Rule 5 rookie if necessary (it was).

But hey. You want to get your feels out because reasons and stuff. Don’t let actual consideration of real baseball players and requirements for running an actual team of human beings with arms made of flesh get in the way. You need to let that barbaric yawp out, honey. Cry it good.

When Braves decide to designate Jaime for assignment, Sugar Ray Marimon might be the next in line to receive a callup. He’s essentially a Cody Martin type, bullpen/long relief converted from a starting pitcher. The other candidates on Gwinnett’s roster are a lot like Jaime (Kohn,Cornely, Kurcz), but not as extreme.

I think it was perfectly reasonable to send in Jaime, a guy whose arm was fresh after the rest of the bullpen had been used heavily all week — either he figures out how to find the strike zone and becomes a potential closer with big value to our team as a setup man or trade chip, or he doesn’t. After he walked the first two guys, pretty much everything else was moot: the Mets bunted them over by the book, Fredi IBBed to load the bases by the book, and McKirahan demonstrated that he has a chance to be a very useful member of the 2015 Braves bullpen. That was a good thing to learn, and it means that Fredi will be able to trust him in higher-leverage situations. Jaime’s been bumped back to garbage time, and if he keeps choking, he’ll be off the team. That’s all exactly as it should be.

Look, maybe I was a little harsh, but complaining about going to Jaime, with the bases clear and your bullpen juiced from the heavy workload to start the season, is just silly. If there are four games in a row where you need 3-4 relievers in tight situations, and you don’t have a blowout either way in there at all, you’re going to have to go to the back end of the pen eventually. And going to Jaime there, given what was available out there, was the right move. He failed to deliver.

I agree, in theory, that the IBB was unnecessary, although Fredi was clearly playing for the “force at any play, and hopefully a double play” result. And at the end of the day, the winning run scored from third on a sac fly. The IBB was immaterial to the result.

All of which was made possible because Bartolo Colon blind-squirrel-nutted a bloop into RF earlier.

Y’all lets face it, this is our season going forward. A thin margin for error or in this case bad luck that will be the difference between a win and a loss. Hopefully our starters will keep us in the game, our offense will scratch out a run or two, literally and our bullpen can make it hold up. I’d love to have more 12-2 laughers but I’m pretty sure 12 runs will be as rare as a Yeti.

If we were winning last night, I’m not sure if Fredi would have used Jaime or not but last night I think it was a justifiable use of the guy.

BTW guys I messed up. I don’t have MLB.TV I have the MLB channel as part of my cable package. The featured game was Braves v Mets and somehow after 4 innings it was Brewers v Pirates. I’m still angry.

I just really hate the idea of intentionally walking Ruben Tejada, because he’s such a bad hitter that the Mets flirted with taking away his starting job this spring. If you can’t get that guy out, you probably shouldn’t be in the bullpen.

This team’s gonna lose more games than it wins, though. There will be more games like this.

I understand not wanting to walk Tejada. If it’s me in Fredi’s position, I have the bullpen coach what McKirahan’s stuff looks like that day, if he’s around the plate or wild, if he’s up or down, if he’s going to get ground balls or fly balls if they get hit, and maybe even have him ask the kid if he’d rather come in with the the open base to play with or the force at any base. Then I either go get Jaime or have him walk Tejada, accordingly. But understand that Tejada is a terrible hitter and MLB pitchers should be able to retire him.

What happened in no way rendered the IBB immaterial. If you get Tejada instead of walking him the sac fly is the third out. The best play was neither to go get Jaime or to let him walk Tejada but to leave him to throw 100 MPH and hope three go over the plate. Then bring in McKirahan to face Murphy.

I’m good with bringing up Sugar Ray. My only issue is if you have so little confidence in Jaime that you only let him pitch 1/3 of an inning before casting him off, why is he on the opening day roster in the first place?

@41, what’s silly is your unprovoked enraged diatribe. Questioning managerial decisions is part of what we do on sports forums. In fact, you’ve done some Monday morning quarterbacking yourself in @46. I do wish you’d publish a list of which of Fredi’s decisions we are allowed to criticize and which cause you to become unhinged. Or are only you allowed to say what you would’ve done if you were in his position?

I understand the doom and gloom about this season but is it really out of the realm this team with good starting pitching and a more contact oriented offense could stay in the Wild Card chase at least into late August? Im a little worried about how our starters can’t seem to get past the 5th but if they can get straight and the offense can be decent??? Who knows?

I take this as verification that, despite projections (both in the Fangraphs sense of the word, and in the sense that some fans want to project motives on to the team based on their own hurt feelings) the Braves intend to win baseball games. I got that from their cutting bait early on Matt Capps, and I got that from their cutting bait on Wandy Roderiguez, and from their intention to cut bait on Josh Outman, before they discovered he was injured.

John Hart wants to trade short-term and over-valued assets from long-term and under-valued assets, and he wants to do it while winning more games than the previous team did. He will probably then forgo the wearing of shirts, and pound his chest a lot, and reduce his vocabulary to “WHAT NOW?! WHAT NOW, HUH?!”

One can argue that this team resembles some of the recently successful teams, like the 2014 Royals and the way the Cardinals typically design their teams.

There’s really nothing wrong with a bunch of guys who get hits, move runners over, and have smart at-bats. Those aren’t behaviors that are intellectually demeaning to those that enjoy data and statistics. I love the Baseball Mogul series because it’s all statistics and finance, but I think I will like this year’s Braves team (if they’re remotely decent) than the hack-away guys from yesteryear.

I’m not questioning the soundness of the approach. I’m questioning the ability of the hitters on this roster to actually execute that approach (or any approach). After Freeman and Markakis everyone else projects to be below league average, many of them project drastically below average.

If we exceed expectations offensively, it will be quite a turnaround for some guys. A lot of credit is going to be headed Seitzer’s way.

further to last week’s exchanges it’s now clear what was going on, all that was going on unfortunately, was a free week’s tease…the notices are up tonight, $195 for the season…MLB is $129 i believe…how Dish feel they can sell that difference i’m not sure except for those of us in rural areas with weak broadband speeds it’s tempting even at that level.

I’m busy trying to figure out how to use Unlocator to get around this stupid blackout. (I can get Braves games, but no Miami or Tampa Bay games, and I live less than an hour from the Alabama border in Pensacola. Go figure.) Anybody have any luck?

Thus far in the season, Cody Martin is basically our Ramiro Mendoza. He’s ready to go two or three innings, he can get righties and lefties out, he’s not so young that you worry his arm will fall off, and he could probably give you a spot start if he needed.

I’m starting to embrace “getting to know” this new team. I originally resisted embracing the new group, but I’ve been so impressed so far with how this team gels that I’m starting to really like it. It’s possible I could like this team more than most of the teams of the last decade.

Ububba…. There is no Mets jersey. It’s all fictional. There are barely any mets fans even in NYC (there’s a large Hispanic population that love the mets, I assume from when they had all Hispanic players, but even that’s a slim mjnority).

I’m north jersey (fifteen to the upstate ny border and ten from NYC. All the damn Yankee fans here. I was lucky enough to grow up when tbs played all the games. Last 5 years I’ve streamed from MLB.tv to my Xbox.

“Philly fans of any sport are the f*ing worst. We literally have no association with them. Classless.”

Umm…I’m from New Jersey and there are plenty of Philadelphia fans of all pro sports (I’m a fairly serious Eagles supporter myself). I wouldn’t classify Giants/Jets/Mets/Yankees fans as notably “classier” than Philadelphia fans.

Heyward dropped a fly ball today too but didn’t get an error for some reason. He’s not off to a great start, that’s for sure. But yeah…seven games..etc, etc.

Can’t argue with 6-1. I don’t know how long the magic dust will last, but this is kind of a fun team to root for, even if our announcers have already forever ruined the phrase “playing the game the right way”.

If you let Teheran eat innings the first few months and stick with the plan to provide an extra day of rest whenever possible, you're less likely to end up in a position where you may need to limit the younger arms down the stretch